


three little birds

by activatingAggro (pigeonfancier)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ashen Romance | Auspistice, Gen, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 12:54:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16682002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonfancier/pseuds/activatingAggro
Summary: “What did you do?” you demand. If your ears could pin back, they would. Hadean’s never so much as changed his clothes in the time you’ve known him. Sometimes, you were convinced, literally. “You look so.. so…”“Punk-rock?” Sipara offers up cheerily.“Edgey! You look like you’re about to go off into a rave and sell me drugs in the back alley,” you decide. There’s a ribbon threaded through his braid in Sipara’s vivid orange, and you regret, suddenly, that you hadn’t thought to buy one in maroon. Well! You’ll be here for another night. You’ll find time, or else you’ll go home, mix up some dye, and actually get the proper colour of things.Or you’ll see if the fellow who made your doll has anything in the same hue in fabric, and make a ribbon for yourself.“Hads can’t sell drugs, dude, he cries if he even smells a honey-drop.”Pheres visits Sipara and Hadean's new apartment.





	1. Chapter 1

If anyone had asked you three perigees ago if you’d ever step into space, you’d have laughed in their face. There’s no room for a maroonblood off-planet, save as a janitor or as a helm. And your lot has been written in the books since long before youh atched out. The Dysseu line - and the Cuckoos beside it - have one purpose for the Empire. Hadn’t Rmeros made that clear? Hadn’t history?

But you’d never expected to leave the planet before Ascension, either, but here you are. When Riccin had offered to take you aloft, off to that colony they’d discovered off in the stars, you’d accepted. And when Longhaul had mentioned that he needed to turn in paperwork at Nott Terminal.. it likely wasn’t the wisest choice, but you’d scrambled to come up with reasons that he should bring you along. How could you not?

Your quadrant and your clade were now living up in space, at least part of the time. If you didn’t figure out ways to come to them, you weren’t certain they would ever be able to come to you.

Nott Terminal isn’t like Malevola. Malevola is – similar to Alternia, in a hundred different ways. Oh, the air smells different and heavier there, heady in the way of the wind after a summer’s rain. The riverwater, when you went under, was bitter in a way that you weren’t used to, and it’d clung to the back of your throat, even hours after you’d left. But it’s still a planet. It had the same sort of trees as you’d see back home. It’d had the same sky, and the same galaxies, spiraling above.

Nott is a station, and you dog Longhaul’s heels as you walk through it. Perhaps it’s the fact he’s teal that makes him kind: perhaps it’s the desire not to have to fish you out of a gutter, or train up a new assistant, because despite his psionics, he keeps dawdling to let you catch up every time you get distracted. And you do keep getting distracted. It’s..

On television, stations are always vast, dingy and thoroughly lived in. There’s dirt on the walls, and there’s dents, and holes, and scuffs. Scorchmarks, you’re certain, are supposed to be as common as weeds back on Alternia. If you went by the films, then there’s always knife fights in space, and every troll has a hand on their belt at all times, ready to whip out their pistol or anything else. Cleaner, sometimes you hope, because often, they look as filthy as their surroundings.

But that’s not quite accurate. Nott Terminal just looks like a city, with skyscrapers that stretch into the ever-distant ceiling panels and disappear, and vines growing in enclosed containers with light shining down on them, and even skitterbuggies, drifting along lazily in the sky above you. The trolls here look like the adults at any other cities. It all looks so normal, save the lack of a sky, that you keep reminding yourself that you shouldn’t be staring..

Then you’ll spot an adult with horns that curve two feet past his head and a massive fur collar, and you’re spinning in place to gawk.

When Longhaul catches you holding an alien boba pearl up to the light in your spoon, squinting to see if the shapes inside are seeds or organisms, even his patience ends. “Pheres,” he says, crisp. “Is this your first time in space?”

You nearly drop the spoon.

“Ah!” You tip it - and the pearl - back into your tea instead, head flooding your cheeks. “Yes, sir.” It’s not the complete truth, but the Psionic Corps are on difficult ground with the Education Program as of late. You’re not keen to find out if it’s in violation of your contract that you’d gone out with them. “My apologies. Is it.. terribly obvious?”

He isn’t examining his tea, or his food, which is wet and slithering across his plate. Instead, just before it escapes onto the table, he just stabs it with the idle confidence of a man who’s eaten it a hundred times before.

It squelches sadly, cerulean pooling up around where the fork had punctured it - and then it evaporates into goo. You yelp. Longhaul rolls his eyes towards the ceiling. “Excessively,” he says. “Why don’t you go and explore the station for the night? Visit the quadrants you mentioned.”

Get this out of your system, he does not say, but you can catch a hint.

So you murmur your apologies, thank him profusely, and bolt from the cafe, your bag flapping behind you.

The station’s large, but you think, Hadean and Sipara’s apartment can’t be that far.

* * *

[I am lost,] you inform Sipara briskly in Southern Common, [and I am alone, and I am fairly certain this street vendor is looking to sell my organs for lususfodder.]

“Sir, can I interest you in a hat —”

You smile at them blankly and sidle back.

Of all the places you could end up at in Nott Terminal, of course you’d find yourself at a street market. When you were young, Qafs Tuyur had hosted a market every half-sweep, to mark the turn of the seasons. After that, you’d scarcely brushed the sand from your shoes by the time the historical society had swept you into working for them. Places like this just.. call to you. They’re in your blood, practically speaking.

Literally, you suppose, if you consider Rmeros’s profession.

You hadn’t expected it’d be quite this busy, though.

[The fuck, how did you even get up Nott?] Sipara demands, flustered. She’s been two moments from stuttering this entire conversation. It’s the first time you’ve spoken in almost three perigees, and.. it’s a little cruel, to be satisfied that she’s the one lost for once, but you’ll bask in it anyway.

It’s not as if it’s unkind. It’s just a little petty. [Perhaps I hitched a ride,] you tease, eyeing up the booth next to you. It’s got handmade crafts for sale, dolls with bulbous eyes and large mouths, and fur that’s minky under your fingers. You’d buy one, if you knew what the species were. [Or maybe I jumped. My teleportation’s getting better, you know.]

[Not that better, dude.] But she can’t bring herself to bite. [Or you wouldn’t be, like, worryin’ about being streetfood, just sayin’. Hold on, hold on, I gotta get dressed.]

[It’s fine.] Now that you’re away from the persistent vendor, you could switch back into Standard.. but there’s something nice about hearing Sipara speak Common. [You haven’t been practicing Common, have you?] you ask. You hold up a doll in front of you. It stares at you with limpid rosewood eyes, only a blink off from your own colour.

“That’s a Friendship Xenopile,” the owner informs you. He’s a big fellow with glass lenses and a sword on his back, and he leans forward, resting his chin on his elbow as he talks. “Her name’s Of The Eternally Starlit Nights, and she turned out to be the space heiress last season, if you can believe it. I think her last design was actually better…”

You buy her.

[Uh, when I was twelve,] Sipara’s huffing in your ear. [C'mon, dude, nobody speaks this shit outside of, like, Saahin.]

[And Hanhai.]

[Yeah, and Hanhai, but who ever goes to Hanhai?]

The doll fits neatly in your bag, if you lift the flap just so. The only thing that protrudes is the nose, and you can deal wit that. It gives it a certain charm.

Especially when the nose is the same hue as its eyes.

[I do,] you say, letting the crowd mill you along. There’s so many adults here! You think you’re the only troll under eight, and you can feel trolls eyes dragging on you as they take you in. But they drift away once they spot the IPC’s crest on your jacket breast, and then again on the back. The insignia is like a protection brand. It makes you invisible.

Even a few perigees ago, you would’ve resented that. But you’re strangely pleased by it, standing here, doing your best to slip between bodies as you push back towards the stalls. You’re not precisely an adult yet, for all that you’re dressed better than the majority of them.  And, for once, you’re not bothered by the fact they can tell.

[Since when?] she demands, startled. [Port Mina doesn’t count. Errybody goes to Port Mina, dude, and, like -] Sipara pauses. For a moment, you wonder if she’ll bite. You can practically hear her deliberating it.

But perhaps a few perigees of silence have done her well. Because all she says is, mild as soap: [- your girl lives there, ‘n you two are tied-at-the-hip dorklords, so, like, 'course you’re going there.]

[Tied at the hip like you and Hadean?]

[That doesn’t count, fucker,] she protests, [we’re pale!]

Bickering like this is something you’ve missed. And she must have missed it as well, because stays on the phone the entire time she dresses, and then gets on a rickshaw, and then finally, finally makes it to the market. By then, your bag’s gained several other new additions, and you’ve given up on carrying it, so much as dragging.

When she sidles up next to you, ears pricked, you almost miss her. But then she says [Pheres!], loud enough to carry over the din of the crowd, and you look up.

Sipara.. looks different. She looks smaller, in a way, then she used to on planet. Perhaps she feels smaller here, in the same way you do. Or perhaps it’s just the clothes. For once, it drapes, instead of clings: there’s a scarf loose across her hair and her horns, a shirt that billows, pants that rests in a shroud down to her ankles. It softens her. It defangs her, when she’s surrounded by all of these sharp-tongued adults.

The surreality of it matches the moment, because you think this is the first time in your life she hasn’t greeted you by flinging herself in your arms.

You step forward and tug the scarf off, gentle. She huffs, watching, but she lets you - and the only protest she makes is when you wrap it around your neck instead, tying it in a neat windsor knot under your chin. It clashes with your jacket, but it’s the principle of the thing, not the aesthetic. “Thief!” she cries.

“I make it look better,” you tell her, then you lean in, brush your nose against hers. It’s a silly, intimate gesture. It’s one that you’ve missed, and she must have, too, because she doesn’t pull away. “Don’t worry! I shan’t go and steal it permanently.”

“Well, good.” Her cheeks are warming. She watches you, something strange in her eyes, and then she huffs, reaches up to tug on her ear. “So,” she says, awkward. Everything about her is awkward right now, from her voice to her posture, and.. it’s not a look that suits her. Sipara was made for confidence. This meekness sits like docility on Hadean: poorly, just strange enough to jar. “So. Um. Are we okay?”

You consider.

It’d be easy to soothe her, and tell her it was all fine. If you did, she might even believe it.

But, for once, you don’t feel the need to soothe her.

“No,” you tell her, and her face doesn’t fall so much as it freezes. She nods jerkily, shoving her hands into her pocket.

“Okay.”

“But we will be,” you finish, and you take her hand, use it to pull her forward until you can loop your arm through hers. She’s stiff when you settle your chin onto her shoulder, but she’ll relax with time. It’s healthier this way, you think. For the both of you. “Ah. Is Hadean hive? I brought gifts! Including one for Bennue, and Lanta. You should show me your apartment, and I’ll divvy them out..”


	2. Chapter 2

The apartment’s certainly very..

“Chalk-y,” Sipara offers, bouncing through the door. “Cave-y? Looks kinda, like, I dunno, the murder room in Cleaver, right? But look on the bright side, dude, it’s +5 to intimidation when bozo over here brings folks home. I can be like, yeah, totes, don’t natter at me, pupaface, just getcha coffee and stick to Hads, and I won’t show you my murder dungeon.”

“I was going to say it’s very modern,” you protest, wrinkling your nose, but she has the right of it. Nott Terminal’s housing is fascinating in an exotic way. The walls aren’t drywall, like you’re used to, or even wooden boards. You suppose that would’ve weighed too much, hauling it up.

No, instead it’s cocoon, pressed smooth until it looks almost like a more organic stucco. The floor’s of the same material, you think, just polished smooth and glossy. If it were stripped bare of furniture, it’d be unsettling. But there’s windows, at least, to break up the white of the walls. And there’s wood furniture everywhere, with a style that’s familiar in the mahogany of the wood, and the pillows strewn apart. But in others, you suppose you’re seeing Hadean’s influence.

For one, in the shriveled head on the end-table by the door. When you accidentally make eye contact with the empty pits, you force yourself to turn away. “You have a murder dungeon?” you ask, wandering over to a display case by the kitchen nook, and Sipara chirrs mockingly after you.

“‘course I have a murder dungeon, duhhh. C'mon! Need it for my wis debuff, baby, otherwise, like, I’d totes be a munchkin, and who wants to deal with that?”

The display case, at least, is cute. It’s wood, filled with a basket and feathers that you’re satisfied to recognise. There’s books on the interior, and games, and on top of it..

She has, you’re not surprised to find, brought her Steelborn plushie up from the planet. What you’re not expecting is to see it staring you in the eye from the mantle, surrounded by smaller, yet infinitely fatter, looking stuffed grubs of various colours. One has keratin that looks almost silky. You reach out to pick it up, curious, scooping it up neatly under the legs -

\- and it twitches to bite you, fang-filled mouth opening in a chalky shriek of outrage.

“Pher!” Sipara wails as you desperately flail your arm. The grub does not come off. Its legs are clawing madly at the air, even as its body scrunches up to try and make it look bigger. You can feel it growling. Or maybe that’s just Sipara’s nails scratching at it as she tries to wrestle it free. “Be careful!”

“Why is it alive?”

“Because she’s a prosthetic base! And don’t call her an it, jeez -” She wrestles her pet project free, then rubs her nose against its forehead, eyeing you irritably. “She’s a fifth generation psibuster,” she complains. “I just got her to start producing null venom. Which, like, don’t worry, it’s made to work on blues, not, like, us. We’re too hot, it’ll start breaking down. Isn’t that right, cutie?”

She plants a kiss on the top of its head. The grub opens its mouth and shrieks inconsolably as she dumps it back on the mantle, then it’s squirming back to its place on the Steelborn.

The other grubs shift. “Lovely,” you deadpan, as Sipara takes a hold of your arm and tugs you away. “What if they fall? Isn’t it dangerous for them to be up there?”

“Nah, dude, they’re from my hardcore stock. Up to three hundred pounds of concussive force afore their shells flinch! They’re fiiine. And their feet are too prickly to fall, anyway. Once, they got on the ceiling, and I couldn’t get 'em down, like, even with a broom - are you bleeding?” she demands, abrupt, peering down at your arm. Her ears pin back. “Pheeer.”

There’s rosewood welling on your arm, sure enough, but you shrug her off. “It’s fine,” you assure her. “It’s - Sipara!”

She’s already darting into the kitchen. When she emerges, it’s with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, ominous in the dark skin, and a bandage. “You shoulda said you’re bleeding,” she complains. “Get your arm out of your mouth!”

“I don’t need peroxide, I’m cleaning it -”

“You’re gonna get gangrene, and your arm is gonna rot off, and then you’re going to die, but not before, like, I drag you for putting your arm in your mouth, dude. Like, what the fuck? You know where that grubs mouth has been. Or, like, if you don’t, pro-tip: bugs have only got one exit hole, dude, you don’t want that in your goddamn mouth. No, shut up, don’t argue!”

Sipara herds you like a small dog. She’s scarcely two inches shorter, and she’s slimmed out in the past half-sweep. There’s a new hardness to her body, with less give in the places you’re used to: when she nudges you with her hip, it’s more bone than fat that sends you stumbling. It makes sense. Stress does that to all of you.

And she and Hadean have faced a great deal more stress, the past few perigees, than you have.

So when she nudges you onto the pile, you don’t protest. You just fall onto it, shoving at the pillows and blankets until they fall into something more suitable to lay on. It’s not how you would’ve made it, if you were making a pile for you and Sipara. The blanket strewn atop it all feels like cotton, rough enough to catch your skin, but it makes sense. Hadean doesn’t like being warm. And between her and him, heat must sink into every part of the pile.

When she sprawls out next to you, curling up until her legs are thrown over yours, you can see how. “Gimme your arm,” she demands, already reaching for it.

“You could ask,” you complain.

“You could, like, die of gangrene, too, but we’re not coverin’ the things we could do, loser. C'monnn.”

Sipara’s rattling away as she works, cleaning off the wound with all the care as if it was something actually major. It’s nostalgic, honestly, the two of you lounging in a pile, cleaning up wounds.. and it’s all the better for the fact that when you lean forward, burying your face in her braids, she smells the way she always has, cardamom and saffron and burnt sugar.

She lets you stay there for a moment. Then, with a chuff, she knocks her head under your chin instead. “I’ve missed you,” she says. “A ton. I’m, like, super duper glad you came up, dude.”

“Well, he had to visit eventually,” Hadean drawls, stepping into the room. “Sup, Pheres.”

There.. should, you are aware, be something unfortunate about your auspistice wandering into the room to see you lounging in his pile, with his moirail. But Sipara was your moirail first, long before he’d ever stepped out of Jejunus. It isn’t as if you’re papping her. It doesn’t hurt him to share.

And he’s never minded before. You can’t imagine a brief stay with the program has gone and made him possessive. Especially not when Sipara cuts the bandage neatly with a fang, binds it, and then rolls over to face him. “Haaaaaads,” she wails. “I thought you were sleeping. C'mere!”

“I can’t sleep,” he says, stepping forward.

And you stare at him, because this is the first time you’ve ever seen him like.. this. “Oh my goodness,” you say, marveling, then you bound to your feet, abruptly enough that Sipara goes tipping back. She’s growling from the pile, a stutter-start noise that keeps trying to go too deep for her voice, but you pay her no mind. There’s a more important matter to focus on.

Namely –

“What happened to your face?” you demand, a hand flying in front of your mouth, and then you’re bounding into Hadean’s space.

Hadean’s too tall! Even if you stood on tip toes, you can’t quite reach his face. But that’s fine. He’s got a braid you can grab hold of and yank, hard enough to pull his head down to level.

“Whoa there! Try not to murder me,” he protests, but you just click your tongue at him as you squint at his piercings. Because his face’s covered in them. He looks like Rmeros, almost, all black steel against the pallor of his skin, but.. no, he’s not quite that bad. He’s not wearing leather, at least, no matter how garish his jewelry is.

He’s got piercings in his eyebrow. You’re tempted to tug one, but then you imagine if it comes out. There’d be blood, and he’d probably bite you, and - when Hadean grins at you, showing off his fangs like he followed that thought, you balk. It’s not as if the piercings are important, anyway, compared to the fact his smooth is skin, unmarked by ink or varnish.

You’ve never seen him without his tattoos before. He looks.. older, like this, without the white to distract you, and you’re tempted to lick your hand and wipe at his cheek, too, just to see if you can fix it.

Impulse control is difficult. You give in, but his skin remains the same perfect gray, even when you press down as your finger drags. “What did you do?” you demand. If your ears could pin back, they would. Hadean’s never so much as changed his clothes in the time you’ve known him. Sometimes, you were convinced, literally. “You look so.. so…”

“Punk-rock?” Sipara offers up cheerily.

“Edgey! You look like you’re about to go off into a rave and sell me drugs in the back alley,” you decide. There’s a ribbon threaded through his braid in Sipara’s vivid orange, and you regret, suddenly, that you hadn’t thought to buy one in maroon. Well! You’ll be here for another night. You’ll find time, or else you’ll go home, mix up some dye, and actually get the proper colour of things.

Or you’ll see if the fellow who made your doll has anything in the same hue in fabric, and make a ribbon for yourself.

“Hads can’t sell drugs, dude, he cries if he even smells a honey-drop.” Sipara sprawls out across the pile, rolling onto her back and wrestling with her boot. She chucks the first one at the door.

“Yeah, my ancestor should’ve pailed a honey badger too,” Hadean snarks, and she chucks the second right at his head. He catches it with a grin, tossing it back at her, which starts off a brief game of toss-the-boot, and..

One night, you’re going to have to get Kit integrated properly into your clade. It’s been othering to have her distant from Sipara and Hadean, and she deserves to be here, milling about with the rest of you. But that’ll take thought and consideration, because you’re not quite sure how to pull it off.

It’s something to think about. As of right now..

Hadean’s not looking at you. You click your tongue, and when he ignores it all the same in order to catch the boot, you give up. Bouncing onto your heels, you reach up, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck to haul him down. “I’m trying to talk,” you complain, but you don’t get much more out, because Hadean jolts like you’ve struck him.

Sometimes you forget that he works as a fighter. One twist frees him from your grasp, even as he lands a hand neatly in the center of your chest to throw you off. His lips are curled back to bare his fangs, and - that’s where Sipara got that noise, you think, because he’s actually growling at you, loud enough that it sounds like a rock was thrown into a trash compactor.

It only lasts a second. You’re jerking back immediately, hangs up in front of you to pacify, while Sipara’s bounding to her feet. She slips neatly between the two of you, reaching up to pap him with one hand, and hook her other arm hard around his waist. “Stop that,” she snaps, sparing an apologetic glance towards you. “C'mon, dude, it’s Pher -”

And he does stop, just as she’s tugging him towards the pile. His eyes are wide. He’s not flushing, the way you are, but you can see his pulse jumping in his throat, in the peek of skin afforded by his high collar. “- sorry,” he manages, voice still rough. “Uh, sorry about that.”

You’d wondered if the program had made him possessive.

You hadn’t considered it might’ve left him traumatised. But - of course it did. They’d had him in a collar, and here you are wrapping your hands around his neck like the worst kind of reminder.

Sipara hauls him down into the pile, then curls up half on top of him, her chin resting on his collar, her arm splayed across his chest. “Ah. No! I’m sorry,” you murmur, dawdling. You don’t know if you should hop into it. Hadean looks.. flinchy, almost. Your auspistice isn’t made for unease. It leaves your mouth dry to tihnk you inspired it. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you. Ah -”

You cup a hand under your hair, fluffing the curls to add volume, and to give yourself something to focus. “I brought gifts,” you offer, because - you don’t know what else to say. This is suddenly, hideously awkward, in a way you’ve never quite felt before. But you’ve never scared Hadean. “Including that sword I mentioned -”

“Calm down, pololo,” he says, rolling his eyes, and pats the cushions. Because he’s going boneless and languid into the pile, back at ease as quickly as you’d spooked him.

You’re sure it must be intentional. It’s hard not to be grateful all the way. “The sword’ll be there later! Are you going to sit down, or just stare? You’re making me tired just looking at you.”

“He’s making me tired jittering,” Sipara complains, opening an eye to peer at you. “C’monnn, Pher, I can’t deal with two greyhounds, getcher ass down. We can see if we can, like, make him over-heat. Didja know fish can’t sweat? I bet he just dies like a fish.”

“Wow,” he drawls. “A dog and a fish? Why do i have to be the shitty animals?”

“Because an antelope won’t fit.” You settle down next to the two of them, but then Sipara props herself up with enough force that Hadean oomphs. With her free hand, she drags you over by the collar, until your horns are resting on his sternum, and she’s close enough to rap her head against your horns. It’s a thoroughly uncomfortable position.

But when Hadean grunts and shoves her off with a hissy complaint, sending her sliding - and you with her - the resulting scuffle’s enough for everyone to get comfortable. In the end, you’re resting your chin on Hadean’s ribs, head buried on top of your arms, while Sipara’s using his lap as a pillow with her arm threaded around a leg to drag it nearer. No ones horns are in the way. Your combined legs are only mostly off of the pile, but that’s fine enough: the ground isn’t precisely chilly.

“I have a new violet customer,” you announce, once everyone’s settled. It’s only a small lie, but you’re not certain you’re comfortable telling the truth, not it’ll only spawn more questions. “Or, well - they’ll be a customer soon enough. That’s where I got the sword, Hadean! Which, ah, you’ll see later. They collect alien artifacts, apparently.. isn’t that something?”

“I wish you wouldn’t, like, sell to fish,” Sipara says with a huff. “Like, dude, they’re so - so -” She wrinkles her nose, setting her ears back. “Fish-y.”

“Better fish than clowns.” There’s something brittle about the way Hadean says that, but then the moment passes, as quickly as it came. “I mean, still not great, but.. you said they’re going to be a customer, right? They’re not yet?”

You bob your head. There’s something unfortunate about all of this, and the edge that Hadean’s gained in your absence. Something happened, clearly, beyond just his program stay. He holds himself like a bag of glass ready to shatter, and you don’t know gentle you must be to avoid it. Or if it’s your place to try and peer inside.

Probably not. Pile or no, you’re not his moirail.. and no matter how tempted you are, the best time to dig into his business is probably not when Sipara is close enough to bite. “They haven’t bought anything yet,” you confirm. “They’re getting there, though. I’m sure!”

“Okaaay. So, they’re not buying anything, they’re weird, and they’re a fish. Are they at least hot? Because, c’mon, you gotta get your money’s worth somewhere.”

“Hadean!” Sipara hisses. “Dude!”

“What? It’s a good question. Pololo keeps his eyes on the prize,” he protests, grinning. “That’s all.”

You pause, considering. “To some people,” you decide, “but, ah..” They’re taller. They’re finned, and they’re soft, and they’re kind. “Not to me, I’m afraid. They’re like a lowblood, Hadean. You know how that is -”

“And now we’re going back into this.” Sipara curls her lip, lolling her head back. “Wah, wah, wah, lowbloods are so boring, I gotta go stick my bulge in a bilgeblood or it just isn’t any fucking fun.”

“Like you date lowbloods, either,” you accuse her, reaching out to grab her ear. She squalls, twisting to nip at her wrist, but you jerk your hand away at the last moment, dangling in above her head. She lurches up to nip at it, her teeth skimming the skin of it. You howl -

\- and Hadean catches you right in the horn with a flick of his nail, following it up with a thwack towards Sipara. Towards, because she’s pulling back with another one of her unempirely howls. “What’re you, toothing? Calm down, no fangs in the cladepile! Just because Pheres’s got a hankering for anything cold, blue, and probably with a musclebeast fetish doesn’t man we have to pick on him -“

It’s your turn to howl. “I don’t have a blueblood fixation -”

Hadean laughs, warm, and Sipara beams, all teeth. Your outrage can’t last in the face of that. You scowl at them, but it only lasts for a moment - then your expression cracks, one shard at a time, until you’re smiling as well. “You’re awful,” you complain, letting your face drop until it’s hidden in his shirt. “You’re both awful. And - no one has a musclebeast anything! If I was attracted to that sort of thing, then I would think the violet was attractive. They were in a.. a… ”

“Musclebeast suit?” Sipara asks, wrinkling her nose. There’s something very accusing in her tone, not aided by the way she looks like she just swallowed a live bird, and it’d begun to start pecking at her.

“Yes!” You pause. “Well, no. I suppose it was a barkbeast suit.”

“Dude, what the fuck?”

“Oh! Don’t say it like that!” you cry, and.. you’ve missed this, you think, more than anything else since they’ve left the planet.

“Okay, maybe we’re all awful,” Hadean says. “But not fish in a fursuit levels. So they’re not hot, they’re not paying you..” He tilts his head to the side, clicks his tongue as he raises his eyebrows. It’s almost easy to forget the way he was just flinching, moments ago. “- but they’ve got a musclebeast fixation? I don’t know, pololo, that doesn’t sound like a plus to me.”

“Iunno, sounds like it’s a plus to him. I mean, dude, let’s see what the case is, here. Dude’s hanging out with fish that ain’t buying, but, like, act super docile.” Sipara’s gone boneless to match him, for all that she’s committed to dragging you. Lying like this, with her eyelashes brushing her cheeks, she looks ready to fall asleep. But she doesn’t. She keeps talking, up until she pauses to add: “- super duper docile. Y’know, like a woofbeast. Like the woofbeast they’re dressing up as. No biggie. Except -”

Even you’re unwinding. How could you not? You’re laying about with two of your favorite people on the entire planet for the first time in ages. If this was what it was like for Sipara to live with Iconic, you’re not surprised she could never bring herself to pick sides. It’s just a shame that they had to leave for space, just when you’d gotten settled into sedentary life for the first time.

“I’m not hanging out,” you huff, stretching your arms out in front of you. “I wasn’t hanging out!”

“Objection!” she barks out, pointing at you. “You met a fish! You got a sword from a fish! You, like, talked to a fish, probably shook hands with a fish, probably kissed them on both of their gross slimy wrists, like a fish. Their furry, gross, slimey fish-wrists, which means - did you, or did you not, probably get shed on by their weird carpet pelt?”

“You’re so callous. For no reason, really. Honestly, Sipara, they were perfectly silky -”

You realise that was the wrong thing to say just as she clasps both hands to her mouth and shrieks.

“Oh my God, did you touch it? Hads,” she wails, slapping at his legs, “he touched it! With his bare hands! We left the planet, and - and -” A shake of her head sends her braids bouncing. Then she’s leaning forward, so quickly that they lurch in a clatter of beads. “And now he’s off, like, getting seduced by freaky seawolves -”

“Oh!” How are you supposed to respond to this? You love your clademate, but “No one is seducing anything! It wasn’t even - they didn’t have any dedication,” you huff. “If they did, it would have had horns. And fins. What sort of seawolf doesn’t have fins?”

“So you have preferences now,” Hadean says with entirely too much interest. You hiss and bury your face back into his shirt, while Sipara lolls her head back and cackles.

“You’re both being cruel. Cruel and untoward! This is why I can’t bring Meukit around, you know. You’d just - oh! You’d scandalise her. She’s a good person, not - not -” You flap a hand demonstratively. It isn’t as if you intend to hit Sipara, exactly, but the yelp when your hair skirts curls is satisfying, in a grim kind of way. “- sorry! She’s not filled with all this raunch, like the two of you.”

“.. what, like, ranch dressing?”

“No! Raunch, as in -” How are you supposed to keep your head down when Sipara’s asking questions like that? When you squint at her, she’s squinting right back, her ears tilted in the half-mast angle that she always does when she’s doubting. She looks like Kabiir, right after you offer her peanut butter to trick her into not barking. “You know what that means,” you accuse her. “Don’t play dumb.”

“I’m not playing dumb -”

“Maybe you are just dumb, then,” you sniff.

Sometimes you forget about how quick she is. Sipara pops up onto her knees in a moment, half-launching herself over Hadean. You shriek, tumbling back. Hadean yelps as her knee bounces off of his in her mad scramble to get at you, but your back is on the stone, and Sipara’s undeterred by the way he snatches at her shirt. She lands on top of you like some pronouncement from high above, hands landing neatly on either side of your head, her knees clasped around your hips firmly enough to pin you in place.

When she tilts her head forward, her braids fall in a curtain around the two of you. One thumps inelegantly into your nose. “Take it back, I’m, like, super smart. Hella smart. A real genius.”

“I will not.” It’s your turn to curl your lip at her. “And if you don’t get off of me, then I’ll bite off your nose.”

“You will not.”

“I will too!”

“Will not!”

“Will too.”

“Will not,” she snaps, “because if you do, I’ll bite off yours!”

“I will too, or - or - I would, if you had enough of a nose to bite!”

“Am I ashing everyone?” Hadean complains, rolling over and onto his seat. “Get up, or I’m laying on both of you. One. Two. Thr-”

Sipara shrieks, right in your ear, and bounds off of you, back onto the pile. She bares her teeth at Hadean before collapsing across his legs again, boneless as a cat. “Don’t quadblur,” she complains. “Gross! Almost as gross as Pheres’s furry fish thing.”

“I don’t have a thing –”

“You do have a thing!” she yowls at you, and it’s your turn to push back into her face, and..

The apartment’s different. The walls are strange, and the colours are off, and it’s not quite your home, even with Sipara’s things decorating every available surface, and Hadean’s influence as clear as fingerprints across it all. And it does look rather like the murder room in Cleaver, if you’re being perfectly honest.

And it has a murder dungeon, evidently, and it’s in space –

– but you’ve missed this. You’ve missed them, and you’ll just have to make it your space, too.


End file.
